Baku, Tbilisi discuss accelerating of the construction of Georgian section of the BTK railway

Issues of accelerating of the construction of the Georgian Marabda-Kartsakhi section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway discussed in the Ministry of Economy of Georgia on Tuesday.

As reported ministry told Trend, the minister Irakli Kvirikashvili therefore met with Marabda-Kartsakhi bilateral coordination council chairman, head of Azeryolservis JSC of Ministry of Transport of Azerbaijan Javid Gurbanov.

As explained in the ministry, the parties discussed and agreed on plans for future activities to accelerate work on the Georgian section of the building.

Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being constructed on the basis of the Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish inter-state agreement.

Azerbaijan allocated a loan worth $775 million to construct the Georgian section. The State Oil Fund finances this project in accordance with the presidential decree on 'Implementation of measures within Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project', dating February 21, 2007. The State Oil Fund has allocated $403.3 million since the beginning of financing the project and until October 1, 2012.

It is planned to construct a new 105-kilometre railway section as part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. Moreover, the section of the Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Marabda railway will be reconstructed in Georgia which will increase its capacity to 15 million tons of cargo per year. It is planned to build a centre in Akhalkalaki for the transition of trains from the existing train tracks in Georgia to the European one.

Peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tons of cargo. This figure will be at the level of one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo in the initial stages.